Wendy Gargiulo claims harassment from teachers union

Longtime North Merrick Board of Education Trustee Wendy Gargiulo — who also represents the district on the Central High School District board — abruptly resigned last week. In her resignation letter, she alleged harassment and intimidation by members of the public and the teachers union.

The Merrick Jewish Centre sought to open a conversation on Feb. 10 with Jewish high school students, their families and the larger community, about the kind of challenges or bias they may face when they head to college.

Students from John F. Kennedy High School bolstered the school’s reputation for top-notch science education on Feb. 3, when they finished fourth out of 41 teams in the Nassau East Regional Science Olympiad competition.

“I didn’t even know the scoreboard went that high,” St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School Principal Leeann Graziose remarked when she saw that the SEAS team had surged ahead of Holy Families of Hicksville by 2 points to win one thriller of a basketball game on Jan. 24.

Everywhere Irma Kass went, friends and former colleagues recognized her. Quick trips to the supermarket turned into hour-long conversations, her family fondly remembered. They were even stopped while on a vacation in Israel, far from their Bellmore home. Kass’s decades in education made her a known face in the community.

The North Merrick School District thanked the Board of Education – President Wendy Gargiulo, Vice President John Pinto, and Trustees Edward Corona, Steve Enella, Jennifer Hyland, Tracey Miller, and Todd Ransom – at the November 14th Board of Education meeting as part of School Board Recognition Week.

New York, along with the rest of the nation, is in the middle of a deadly opioid epidemic. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the average life expectancy of Americans continued a three-year decline driven by deaths from overdoses. The rate of overdose deaths involving opioids other than methadone increased by 45 percent from 2016 to 2017.

As New York Democrats look ahead to two years of majority control of the State Senate — and the Assembly and the governor’s mansion — they should also remember the past and learn from their predecessors’ mistakes.